Sharon M. Johnston is an author and public relations specialist who lives in sunny Queensland, Australia.
She has been a Pitch Madness host for the past few years, and is also a Pitch Wars mentor.
Her New Adult Sci Fi Romance, DIVIDED: An Open Heart Novel Book 1, is out now with City Owl Press.

Name: TarynEmail: tarynalAThotmailDOTcomTitle: PLAYING GODWC: 75KPromotion link: http://novelteenagers.blogspot.com/2011/07/contest.htmlPitch: When humanity learns its writers can create, or “Animate,” their own worlds, people have the final nail in the coffin of religion. Kalyn has spent her whole life trying to Animate, but when her brother gets that distinction first, she finds herself turning from the conventional aversion to religion and befriending a girl with religious sympathies. As Kalyn wonders if religion is less dangerous than the government insists, she stumbles across an old abandoned chapel with a secret which just may destroy the only goal she’s ever had.

*Vickie requested this MS off a contest a couple months ago, but it has gone through extensive edits since then*

Fifteen-year-old aspiring novelist Elena loves that whatever she writes with her magical pen comes true. But she questions the pen and its power when it writes of its own accord about a fantasy world and she learns that each time she writes with it, someone becomes a demon. After a demon kidnaps her family, Elena will do anything, even if it means giving up her power, to save her family.

Name: MarcyKate Connolly Email: marcykate@gmail.comMS Name: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE CYBORGMS Word Count: 71KGenre: YA science fictionBlog: http://marcykate.com/?p=2522Tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/MarcyKate/status/91008842586009600Pitch: When seventeen-year-old Maggie Lyons learns she's a cyborg—and that her parents had everything to do with it—she runs away, accidentally kidnapping her nerdy neighbor in the process. Terrified of what could happen if the wrong people discover her condition, she launches a cross-country hunt for her Maker—the only one who can make her human again. But when she meets the others like her, she finds out there's a lot more to be afraid of than winding up under a microscope.

Name: Kate LarkindaleEmai;: katelarkindale(at)gmail(dot)comMS Title: Chasing the TaillightsWord COunt: 87 000 Genre: YA ContemporaryBlog:http://katelarkindale.blogspot.com/Pitch: Taking on an emotionally unstable teenager is probably not the smartest thing Tony has ever done. Between diving practice, classes and homework, not to mention concealing the crush he has on Jake, his best friend, Tony needs to find room in his life for his sister.Lucy has her own secrets, and the one about the accident that killed their parents is so devastating it sends her into a spiral of self-destruction that only Tony’s dwindling strength can save her from.

Pitch:A cross between Romeo & Juliet and The Village, the tale of Venery follows Daciana who is torn between becoming a human or wulfkin at the next full moon. On one hand she's given her heart to a detective who knows nothing of her secret life, and on the other, her inner wolf demands she protect the pack. But when the alpha wulfkin, whose leadership is threatened by her choice, unleashes a man-eating wolf and threatens the detective, Daciana must decides whether to sacrifice her own happiness for the pack.

Pitch: In a future Earth long flooded, a monster known as the Wave rampages, killing everything in its path. 16-year-old Rho was orphaned by one such attack, and offered a place in a mercenary academy for orphans. When one of her fellow mercenaries defects and joins with the Wave to bring about the end of the world, plucky, unsure Rho is charged with assembling an elite mercenary team of her classmates to end him.

My young adult, speculative fiction is about fifteen-year old Morgan Vincent set in a futuristic Australia that holds the world’s most advance medicine and technology. When Morgan’s father asks her to deliver a top secret message to mutant gone rogue Riordan Summers, she ends up making a deal with Rio that leads to secrets about her deceased mother’s past and scientific experiments in the deep sub-levels of Vincent International. Having to decide between morals and the boundaries of science experiments in the ‘name of good’ may be the hardest decisions that Morgan has yet to make.

Friends with kissing. That’s what Maddy’s best friend jokingly calls her relationship with Victor Fernandez. But what starts as secret lip locks in the art room will become Maddy Fuller’s first love and first painful goodbye during one hot summer on Nantucket.

This is the story of the early life of Innocence Frostcaller, known by legend and prophecy as the Walker: the one Fae with all the magical abilities of her six ancestral races, including elemental manipulation and other magical powers.Orphaned as a young teenager, Innocence is accompanied by her shape shifting totem Tagodan, and must struggle with her responsibilities and expectations stemming from her great power: Master the elements, unite the Fae, and drive the human invaders bent on controlling her, or destroying her, from her sacred land.In trying to live up to her prophecy and responsibilities, Innocence makes the mistake of ending death itself, and the repercussions will extend beyond this lifetime as the humans set the date for her execution.

Pitch: The telepathic Owens twins, Piper and Ryder, find themselves at a new boarding school where everything is going well until Ryder is attacked. Through their twenty year old father, a vampire boyfriend, and an uber-telepath, the girls find out they are part of an ancient prophecy, stating that one of the twins is to be sacrificed. The girls must decide to what lengths they will go to protect the other.

Pitch: When Rebecca learns she must play matchmaker for her entry ticket to Heaven, she's totally up for the challege. Armed with a handful of awesome abilities and charged with finding true love for a pretty college student, Alexis Beckman, Rebecca assumes her task will be fun - and easy. That is, until she finds the one for Alexis and falls for him herself, leading her to wonder if Heaven has set her up to fail.

Pitch: Ruth Clask lives her life in America as a much-loved only child, but that's not quite her reality. She has a prim and perfect half-sister and a delinquent half-brother in Ireland, and when her parents decide she needs to bond, she imagines her summer will be spent chaffing under her snooty sister's dictates and avoiding her crazy brother's binges and scrapes. What she finds is that the brother and sister she's been trying so hard to forget are complicated, loving people who care about her deeply; but what happens when, at the end of a really good summer, one of them decides to invade her neat life back in America?

Pitch: Amity Hager spent the first eighteen years of her life hunting Damien Faust, the pirate captain who killed her friends, on the darkened streets of Nocturne Island. When she becomes the unwilling host of the alien Watcher, she finds out she is the only person on the shattered Earth who can kill Faust, and the Government will do anything to recruit her. She'd gladly oblige, if it weren't for the fact that Faust looks and acts exactly like Dirt, the boy she loved.

Pitch: Based on the Planners’ interpretation of Milrona’s only remaining book, Tristan knows that the man in the cobalt hat is always right, there is nothing outside the canyon, and exiles never come back. When his name is snatched from the jaws of destiny as the town's next Leader, he learns that Milroy the Misguided Marmoset is the mask of a villain. When a mysterious young boy arrives and provides his only friend Valeria with an escape from the world she despises, Tristan is faced with a three-sided choice to lead the citizens to the outside world, affix Milroy’s mask to his own face, or forsake the town and save himself.

Pitch: Darkness begins to overwhelm the streets and lives of good, innocent people when the world changes. Celestria Hale discovers she is one of the five remaining Dark magicians, but her powers no longer seem threatening. After meeting Alaire, a man who risks his life for her safety, Celestria is faced to confront a merciless enemy who will stop at nothing to cease the existence of their kind.

Name:Melodie WrightEmail:rewrighter@gmail.comMS Name:Saving AndromedaMS Word Count: 75KGenre: YA mysteryPromotion link (blog, FB post or tweet link)http://foreverrewrighting.blogspot.com/2011/07/pitch-contest-with-agent-vickie-motter.htmlPitch:When Emma Hudson turns 18, her parents share three devastating revelations: she was adopted from Nova Scotia, her biological father is internationally famous folk rocker Michael Fletcher and her birth mother is a convicted killer called Andromeda Bain. She ditches her summer job to embark on a cross-continental quest to track down her roots, discovering her family tree includes unknown relatives, hidden relationships and simmering feuds stretching back three generations. But with a hostile crew of new relatives who'd rather sweep family secrets under the hooked kitchen rug, finding the truth is as elusive as filling a jar with fog…and the real killer is watching Emma's every move.

Name: Suzi McGowenEmail: suzi.mcgowen@gmail.comMS Name: ScratchWord Count: 88kGenre: YA Urban FantasyLink: http://suzimcgowen.blogspot.com/2011/07/in-which-there-is-contest.htmlPitch:In a small town in Southern California, a troll is looking for work beyond the three B's, (bridges, bodyguards, or bouncers). Getting a job as a tooth fairy surprises her more than anyone else. But when tooth fairies are the only thing standing between an ageless monster and children everywhere, it's best if one of the tooth fairies is a troll.

NAME: Valerie IpsonEMAIL: vipson@cox.netTITLE: IDEAL HIGHWORD COUNT: 75,000GENRE: YA ContemporaryLINK: http://valerieipson.blogspot.com/2011/07/pitch-contest-but-it-ends-today-at.htmlPITCH: Ideal High is anything but. It's a place where cliques and bullies flourish, but also a place with a student body president determined to make things right. After the tragic deaths of many of her A-lister friends, Taryn Young sets aside her own pain to lift an entire school out of theirs.

Name: Theresa Paolo Email: tmpmarkmajor@aol.comMS Name: Prove Me Wrong MS Word Count: 80,000Genre: YA Contemporary Promotion link http://theresa-foreverours.blogspot.com/2011/07/make-sure-to-check-out-yatopias-agent.htmlPitch:Hailey is starting fresh at a new school where nobody knows her secret. As long as she keeps to herself everything should be okay, but then she meets Luke and keeping her secret becomes a full time job. When Hailey's secret blindsides Luke, making him realize the girl he trusted completely, purposely deceived him, he must decide if he'll be his father's son and walk away, or accept her for who she is.

NAME: J Mark Boliekemail: mboliek@nc.rr.comTITLE: The Mahogany Door (Book 1 in the Bruinduer Narrative)WORD COUNT: 125000GENRE :YA FantasyLINK: http://jmarkboliek.blogspot.com/2011/07/agent-contest-with-vickie-motter.htmlPITCH: Michael NEEDS to return, JT CAN'T remember, and Kali WANTS to forget, but friendship can stay true through the worst of it all. Follow JT, Kali, and Michael through THE MAHOGANY DOOR to the fantasy world of Bruinduer that will challenge their very concepts of reality and test their friendship to the fullest as they look for a way to return and make things right. Full studio Original Music Soundtrack. "...very much recommended reading" - Midwest Book Review

Name: Sheron Parris Email: sheronsyl@yahoo.com MS Name: The Dark World (Book 1 in the Xavier Delacroix Series) MS Word Count: 130,000 Genre: YA Fantasy Promotion link: http://twitter.com/#!/SheronParris Pitch: When Vampire Order member Eleanor Black is brutally murdered, Xavier Delacroix is left to answer everyone's questions - including his own. Dracula isn't speaking, and everything Xavier thought he knew is deeply questioned when Eleanor Black reappears, extremely different, with a terrifying new power: She can turn from Vampire to Lycan at pure will. And she only wants one thing: Him. Even if he isn't sure he wants that himself. But she's destined to have him, no matter the cost. Filled with uncertainty and indecision, Xavier soon realizes only one thing is for certain: She will get her way, or ones life is sure to end....

Name: Melissa BarlowEmail: MelissaBarlow777(at)yahoo(dot)comMS Name: Knights of AvalonMS Word Count: 92,500Genre: YA Urban FantasyPromotion link: http://survivingwritingabook.blogspot.com/Pitch: Sixteen-year-old Justine Kwiatkowski doesn’t believe in magic, doesn’t believe in reincarnation, and she never planned on having to fill King Arthur’s shoes. All she knows is that last night, the best friend she’s ever had, Gwen Martinez, went missing outside the town of Avalon and she’ll do whatever it takes to get her back. But if she wants to rescue Gwen, she’ll have to believe in a world she thought only existed in legend, because her best friend, the reincarnation of Guinevere, has been kidnapped by Mordred, and fifteen hundred years after the fall of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reborn as New Jersey teens.

Pitch:Call them obsessions, call them compulsions, call them sanity-sucking life-killers--call them what you want, but whatever they are, they're taking over nineteen-year-old Keira Steck's mind. As if the real-live love triangle sabotaging her social life wasn't already enough to drive her crazy. But the OCD won't stay put in her mind--no, it's threatening to sabotage her very grip on reality by forcing its way into that choice between two great guys, but it wants her to choose the wrong one.

Pitch:Jack’s guide to surviving high school: be Invisible, stay out of trouble, get good grades for college. But rarely do things go to plan. With the help of Bruce Lee, Mr. Miyagi, and an un-Invisible boy, Jack takes on the Universe and wins.

Ambrosia Wyne: half-nymph, all-nerd…destroyer of Mount Olympus. To fix things, all she has to do is 1) hunt down and obliterate (or firmly talk to) whoever set her up2) rescue the Gods from Hades 3) get Almighty Titan, Helios (or, “Dad”) to love her again. Baby steps.

(This entry is from someone who emailed me-she was having trouble getting a comment to post, so I'm posting it for her.)

Name: NS DorringtonEmail: nicola_dorrington@hotmail.comMS Name: Edge of RealityMS Word Count: 71,000Genre: YA FantasyPromotion link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=544340452Pitch: In Edge of Reality, seventeen-year-old Cara Page discovers not only are the barriers between this world and the supposedly mythical world of Avalon crumbling, but also she is the Last Pendragon, and the only person able to stop it. But whilst Cara is trying to rebuild the barriers there are dark forces in Avalon trying to stop her. With the help of the eighteen-year-old reincarnation of the world greatest knight, Lancelot, Cara crosses the line between fantasy and reality to find a way to save one world, without destroying the other.

Pitch: Seventeen-year old Becky’s best friend kills himself without leaving a note, a call. Not even a farewell text. Yet as memories of that fateful night emerge from her subconscious, she suspects she may have had something to do with his death.

Pitch: There was something in the creek the day Lacey's best friend disappeared. As the one-year anniversary of the accident approaches, another girl vanishes the same way. Then another. Soon after, the dreams begin and Lacey knows whatever is in the water is coming for her next. She has to face it head-on, before she vanishes too.

When pregnant seventeen-year-old Brisa Larios finds herself at her own shotgun wedding, she imagines her anonymous fiancé with a pornstache and a Chilean vaquero hat, but her actual groom, Hank Milanovich, turns out to be—¡Ahí Dios!—a young, super-hot gringo who makes the monarchs in her stomach migrate south of the border when they kiss at the altar. Hank promises to keep his “junk” in his jeans, as long as Brisa doesn’t ask why he, too, had to get married, but what is he hiding? Brisa’s bumbling detective work inadvertently uncovers Hank’s real motives for marrying her, connecting the dots to a trailer court full of weirdos, all of whom are counting on Hank and Brisa’s tenuous teen marriage in order to keep their homes.

Have her first kiss, get a boyfriend and make new friends was what Liz Kavanagh hoped would happen this year. But when she finds out her family’s secret, that she comes from a family of faery warriors, she realizes this year will not go as she hoped. And when her two world’s almost collide she fears that to protect the people she cares about, Liz may have to give up the things she wanted most.

Name: Emily McKeonEmail: ERMcKeon@gmail.comMS Name: DOWN THE WOODED PATHMS Word Count: 50000Genre: Fantasy based in RealityPromotion link: https://twitter.com/#!/ERMcKeonPitch: Cindy Smith should be living a fairytale life. Trouble is, she's living in the real world and it's falling down around her. With her best friend Benny's help, can she finally learn that she needs to live her life from moment to moment and find her own fairy tale?

Emma sees things other people don’t. Now her best friend is dead and her visions are coming true. Suddenly thrown into the centuries old conflict between the Guardians, a secret order dedicated to protecting mankind from the supernatural, and a creature known as a Soul-Eater, Emma must embrace her gift or loose everything she holds dear

William Rombolawrombola@yahoo.comThe Nymph's Heart97,000 wordshttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1008117377The Fountain of Youth is buried beneath Miami. Two immortals battle to control the sacred waters. Juan Ponce De Leon desires only power and endless life, while Louisa Ramirez seeks release from her immortality so she might spend a single lifetime with the woman she loves.

Modern teen meets classic lit when seventeen-year-old relationship self-saboteur, Jess Kaplan, falls in with the beautifully confident RJ Montag. Despite his sexy just-got-out-of-the-pool-and-shook-my-head hair and his wild intuition, Kaplans do not consort with Montags. Caught in a paradox of passion and sabotage, she attempts to destroy the relationship’s potential; experience tells her he will leave anyway—just like her father did, and she had only herself to blame.

When 16-year-old Lillian Riece discovers she can read minds, she’s given the clue needed to uncover her fathers true identity-he must be one of a select group of telepathic, law making judges known as Magistrates. Determined to know why her father had broken the law he was supposed to enforce—procreating outside of marriage, leaving her illegitimate, and the only one around to pay for his mistake—she sets off on a mission to find him. But on Celadir, Earth’s sister planet, where Magistrates rule supreme, punk kids digging around in their dirty laundry aren’t kindly looked upon, and Lillian quickly finds herself paying more than she’s willing to give.

When 17-year-old Kimmy is kidnapped by rebels, she finds her loyalty for the alien invaders that raised her and her love for the leader’s son tested as she realizes the perfect new world order might not be as it seems. Human girls are dying because of an alien government experiment run by her adopted father and it becomes clear Kimmy is the only one who can solve the problem. But which race will she choose to save: the aliens that rescued the Earth from destruction or what remains of the humans that caused it?

While running with scissors, seventh-grader, Lucienne trips and loses her eye. By age sixteen, she gets more than she bargained for with her prosthetic eye when she magically sees her workaholic mother lie, and the truth is revealed in fancy script. Lucienne must figure out the truth behind the magical eye, and she’ll need to use the same magic that created her lie-seeing eye to save her friends and herself.

Name: Lyla Lee (L.N. Lee on the blog followers list)Email: naseoullee@gmail.comMS Name: NocturneMS Word Count: 97 KGenre: YA Urban FantasyPromotion link (blog, FB post or tweet link): http://twitter.com/#!/han_liz/status/92286767050391552Pitch: Life isn't easy when you're being stalked by a demon. Eighteen-year-old Gabriel Durante should know; he's been trailed by one for seven years. Now, as stakes only become higher and he starts to lose his humanity, Gabriel must team up with a fashionista and the Angel of Death to kill the demon and win back his life.

Name: Linsey MillerEmail: Miller.Linsey@gmail.comMS Name: The Ashen PrinceMS Word Count: 73,000Genre: Young Adult FantasyPromotion link (blog, FB post or tweet link): http://thenationsofthread.tumblr.com/post/7738278320/a-wonderful-agent-contest-with-vickie-motterPitch: Adalmund knows that she can’t stop a war with only some magic and her scarf. For the first time she’ll need a partner, but the man calling himself ‘Peace’, a well-intentioned but misguided revolutionary, isn’t who she wanted. To succeed she’ll have to put aside her pride and her life, and Adalmund won’t allow herself to fail whatever the cost.

When sixteen-year-old Rayna “Ray” Evans spots two angels—one with midnight black wings—nearly four months after her release from the Sunflower Sanitarium, she thinks she’s going crazy again, until she discovers her classmate dead from a supposed suicide. With all signs pointing to the angels, Ray must uncover the truth to save the rest of her school from the same fate. But protecting her friends—and enemies—means not only working with the angels but also trusting them; jeopardizing her heart and her sanity.

Pitch: It's bad enough when seventeen year-old wild child and self-described rock star Carly Reynolds discovers she’s a paranormal medium. But things go from bad to to worse with the news that Carly's grandmother's spirit has been taken by a group of soul-stealing rogue mediums. When the soul-stealers mark Carly as their next target, embracing the abnormal-paranormal is the only way to keep herself alive.

Theresa PococktheresapocockatgmaildotcomeBLOOD OF THE GODS80,000Urban Fantasywearegoddessess.blogspot.com/

Eighteen-year-old Julia is clueless about a few vital facts: first, she is directly related to the ancient Persian Goddess of Love; second, a new generation of these Gods have reached adulthood, and are living on earth to complete a sort of godly 'practicum'; third, Julia's inherited bit of immortality enables her to withstand the powers these Gods use to rule mortals.

Ignorance is great, until Julia becomes stranded with the Gods of Darkness and Death who conclude there is but one way to solve their problems, they must kidnap Julia and use her as a mortal sacrifice. If they don't, their latest deadly gambit might just fail and with it the opportunity to totally control humankind.

Eighteen-year-old Konrad Adler is forced from a flying city above a dystopian past-Earth. He must find his way back to confront a mad scientist before his experiment destroys the world. To succeed, he'll have to overcome his own arrogance and anger, make friends in unlikely places, fly by zeppelin across the Atlantic and back -- battling sky-pirates and mutinous crew -- and learn to take the hard road, no matter the toll on himself or his friends.

Name: Amber HackstadtEmail: amhackstadt dot hotmail.comMS Name: UnnaturalMS Word Count:60,000Genre:YA sci/fi fantasyPromotion link: http://twitter.com/#!/Am777Pitch: Imagine a world where being a super hero is the norm, cities are built in the clouds and the cliché the sky is the limit doesn’t apply anymore. Genetic manipulation has made being a super human an everyday thing, except for Samantha. She was the last ‘natural breed’ born, left to fend the teenage years by herself, scavenging the abandoned cities on ground level.

Name: Sarah FieteEmail: sarahfiete@gmail.comMS Name: BRINK OF LIFEMS Word Count: 80,000Genre: YA Science FictionPromotion link (blog, FB post or tweet link): http://theworldislookingstrange.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-agent-competition.html and http://twitter.com/#!/SareeseFeetPitch: Two half-plant, half-human girls called Opals struggle to stay one step ahead of their creator, a cruel man they only know as Dr. Pinecone. Desperate to rescue the doctor’s remaining creations, they recruit Della and Wynne, a couple of suburban teenagers who agree to journey with the Opals and help them unravel the mysteries of Project Zirconia. But if they're going to tackle this underground science organization, they must be prepared to deal with lies, loss, and a few last acts of desperation along the way.

YAtopia Team

We are ten writers passionate about Young Adult literature in all shapes and sizes. Check out our About Us page for details on all of our amazing contributors! Don't hesitate to contact us with questions or comments.